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<title>Proposal by heartofholtzbert</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044551">Proposal</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofholtzbert/pseuds/heartofholtzbert'>heartofholtzbert</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:14:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>632</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27044551</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofholtzbert/pseuds/heartofholtzbert</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dani decides to propose to Jamie</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dani Clayton/Jamie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>130</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Proposal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dani had thought long and hard about how she was going to propose to Jamie. She’d been thinking about it for months; years, if she was really honest with herself. The only thing that had given her pause, prevented her from doing it sooner, was the knowledge that she would not be around forever; and when she was gone, she did not want Jamie to feel tethered to her, unable to move on or find happiness again. The thought of Jamie mourning her for the rest of her life, the wedding band on her finger only compounding her misery, was Dani’s greatest fear. The one that kept her up at night, even worse than knowing that the spirit inside her, the beast in the jungle, would one day overpower her.</p><p>What finally changed her mind wasn’t a revelation, a sudden epiphany, but rather a slow, dawning realisation. Dani realised it every time Jamie looked at her, touched her, held her, every time they slow-danced in their kitchen, every time they woke up with their arms around each other, every time one of them soothed the other back to sleep after a nightmare, every time they communicated without having to say a word – Jamie loved Dani completely, and Dani loved her the same. There was nothing Dani could do to lessen that love, to protect Jamie so that one day, the blow of losing her would be less painful. The love was just as inevitable as its expiration date. It was like Jamie had said, all those years ago on the grounds of Bly Manor when they sat by the moonflower in the woods – its beauty was in the mortality of the thing. Dani would not – could not – be with Jamie forever, but that was no reason to hold back from loving her, and letting herself be loved, as fiercely as she possibly could. In fact, it was all the more reason.</p><p>And so Dani had decided she would ask Jamie to marry her. It was no matter that they could not do it legally – they could do it in all the ways that mattered. She began to think about where she might do it. In the park near their home where they often went walking? In a nice restaurant, where the food was guaranteed to be better than anything either of them could produce? Somewhere different altogether?</p><p>After months of agonising over the decision, Dani finally realised the obvious answer had been in front of her all along. She would propose to Jamie in their home. The little apartment they’d bought when they moved to America, with some help from Mr. Wingrave (they had promised to pay him back every penny they owed, against his insistence). Jamie still called it a flat, and Dani loved that. They had decorated and furnished it together, and it was theirs. It was where they’d built their life. Where they watched television in the evenings, curled up together, legs intertwined. Where they took turns cooking, and missing the meals Owen used to serve at Bly. Where they sat at the kitchen table and looked over the paperwork for their flower shop. Such a mundane thing, but Dani loved it. Loved watching Jamie as she attempted to balance the accounts, a little crease of concentration appearing between her eyebrows. Sometimes, feeling Dani’s gaze on her, Jamie would look up, and the crease would melt away instantly as their eyes met, and Jamie would smile and say “What are you looking at?” and Dani would just shake her head and kiss her cheek. Sometimes that kiss would lead to more, and sometimes Jamie would teasingly chastise her, accusing her of being a distraction.</p><p>It all happened here, in their home. And so Dani decided the proposal should too.</p>
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